St. Norbert College

Catholic Intellectual Tradition Series

Since 2007, the college has offered workshops to deepen the campus community's understanding of the Catholic intellectual tradition. These conversations educate faculty and staff and provide a venue to reflect and engage in dialogue on the ways the Catholic intellectual tradition impacts the work we do at St. Norbert College.

2014-2015 Series

Spring 2015"The Challenges and Opportunities of Using Hospitality as a Guiding Metaphor in a Contemporary Catholic College"Hospitality is certainly one of the most important Christian virtues. It is fair to say that monastic communities and institutions have often excelled at it. Yet in conversations about institutional mission in a religiously pluralistic community, is is a sometimes difficult matter, for reasons baked right into the concept of hospitality itself. It raises questions about who belongs, and who welcomes--who sets the table; who does the welcoming; and whether, how, and for how long that makes some people guests.

This talk, facilitated by Thomas M. Landy, explores some of those possibilities and difficulties and seeks to find ways to work through those inherent tensions, perhaps requiring our hospitality to be more radical than we might expect.

Fall 2014
Communio from BelowSt. Norbert College community members aspire to the ideal of communio in our interactions with each other. This presentation, facilitated by Fr. Andrew Ciferni, O.Praem., director of the Center for Norbertine Studies, invites us into a deeper understanding of the concept.

Communio is a theological reality expressing our relationship to God. That's a lofty place to begin, one that might be called communio from above. A Catholic intellectual environment positions us to explore communio from the point of view of our various academic disciplines and work environments. We might call that communio from below.

The fall Catholic Intellectual Tradition series will present communio as explored and experienced through the lens of Marcie Paul (Modern Languages and Literatures), Katie Ries (Art), and Kristin Vogel (Library). Their willingness to explore the intersection of communio and their professional expertise will invite us to consider the impact of communio on each of our areas of work and study.